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Book: The Passage of Power
Quotes of Book: The Passage of Power
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  1. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    One of the wise, practical people around the table" urged Johnson not to press for civil rights in his first speech, because there was no chance of passage, and a President shouldn't waste his power on lost causes-no matter how worthy the cause might be. "The presidency has only a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtn't to expend it on this," he said. "Well, what the hell's the presidency for?" Lyndon Johnson replied.
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  2. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country" that they summoned up, and, in some ways, summed up, the best of the American spirit, igniting hopes so that, almost on the instant it seemed, they summoned up a new era for Americans, an era of ideals, of brightness, of hope.
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  3. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans"; "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty"-the phrases of Kennedy's inaugural
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  4. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    strength with which President Kennedy dispatched his enemies"-a tribute couched in rather remarkable words: Johnson described Kennedy "when he looks you straight in the eye and puts that knife into you without flinching.
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  5. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    And, in fact, had Johnson's plan succeeded, in many ways it would indeed have been "just the way it was.
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  6. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    Humphrey was to say, and now he was planning to continue doing so, to use the chairmanship, in Humphrey's words, "to hang on to {the power} he had wielded as Majority Leader" as a "de facto Majority Leader"; Johnson "had the illusions that he could be in a sense, as Vice President, the Majority Leader." His proposal violated what was to these senators one of the Senate's most sacred precepts-its independence of the executive branch; he was proposing that a member of that branch preside over their meetings.
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  7. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    In later decades, the role of the Vice President would be gradually and substantially enlarged-at the discretion of the President-but at the time of the 1960 election, that was where the office stood. No legislative powers, no executive powers, and obstacles, hitherto insurmountable obstacles, to obtaining any-except what the President might choose to give
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  8. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    You know,' Russell said, 'we could have beaten John Kennedy on civil rights, but not Lyndon Johnson.' There was a pause. A man was perhaps contemplating the end of a way of life he cherished. He was perhaps contemplating the fact that he had played a large role - perhaps the largest role - in raising to power the man who was going to end that way of life. But when, a moment later, Richard Russell spoke again, it was only to repeat the remark. 'We could have beaten Kennedy on civil rights, but we can't Lyndon.
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  9. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    Lyndon Johnson. The junior congressman saw two things that no one else saw. The first was a possible connection between two groups that had previously had no link: conservative Texas oilmen and contractors-most notably his financial backer, Herman Brown, of Brown & Root-who needed federal contracts and tax breaks and were willing to spend money, a lot of money, to get them; and the scores of northern, liberal congressmen, running for re-election, who needed money for their campaigns. The second was that he could become that link.
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  10. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    Time would never cure it. Almost half a century later, when she was the only one of the nine Kennedy siblings still living, the author would ask Jean Kennedy Smith about her brother Bobby and his depression over Jack's death. "When did he come out of that?" she repeated, and then said, "I don't think he ever came out of that.
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  11. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    The second most powerful man in the country." All his life Lyndon Johnson had been taking "nothing jobs" and making them into something-something big. And now, no sooner
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  12. Robert A. Caro _ The Passage of Power

    IS WHERE POWER GOES": the most significant factor in any equation that adds up to political power, Lyndon Johnson had assured his allies, is the individual, not the office; for a man with a gift for acquiring power, whatever office he held would become powerful-because of what he would make out of it. Johnson
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